


Uncanny

by Annabel7



Category: Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, but damnit its mine, in this universe without referring to the ship, it's my ship it's tiny and sinking and probably never sailed anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabel7/pseuds/Annabel7
Summary: Waits has momentarily left Ricardo on his own to monitor Ripley's path, the unconscious Taylor, and the nervy synthetic. The last of which isn't doing much good for his own nerves and he attempts to talk with him.





	Uncanny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chainedcoffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainedcoffin/gifts).



“Ripley seems like a…decent person.” It was an understatement and Ricardo knew it. He also knew that he would rather not try to converse with the seemingly shut-down synthetic, but seeing it stare into space was somehow more unnerving than talking to it was.

“Hmm?” it—he—looked back up to him. Thinking of them as things was nearly impossible when one of them was actually engaging with you. “Oh, she is. She’s a good person.” Samuels (whether that was his crew designation or the title of his line, Ricardo didn’t know) looked back up at a screen displaying Taylor’s basic vitals. The woman was on such a heavy dose of painkillers that, had the situation been different, Ricardo would have protested it.

“Do you think she’ll be alright on her own?” Samuels asked, obviously referring to Ripley and not to his coworker. Waits had thought she’d be fine, but Ricardo was sure that had anyone else here been a hair less useful than she was, that Waits would have sent that person instead. It was going unsaid, but he had a sinking feeling that Ripley was being used as live bait. From the look of concern on her shipmate’s face, Ricardo knew he wasn’t the only one with the suspicion.

“She’s incredibly capable. And very intelligent,” this was why Ricardo hated working with synths, they were always flat, cryptic— “I should have gone with her.” His last works were rushed out, almost confessional, _That was not cryptic…_

“She told you she could take care of it, didn’t she?” At least that’s what Ricardo assumed the woman and the synth were talking about… arguing about just outside the bureau doors. Ripley had walked back in after less than a minute, a very uncomfortable and slightly cowed android following close behind. He didn’t speak at all after that until after Waits had finished giving her orders.

“Defying her is the last thing that I’d ever want do but I should have insisted. I trust her abilities in any situation, however it isn’t _safe_ out there—she said that some survivors were _shooting_ at her—not to mention whatever this creature is I—“

“She’s gotten by so far and at least now I have access to the locks, “ Ricardo said, typing in one final override to the system. The instinct as a leader to communicate and calm a worried inferior overpowered his sense of uncanny in trying to talk with a synthetic.

“The marshal is using her as bait,” he said, flat again.

“Yeah, but she knows that’s what she’s doing.”

“Why couldn’t I have—“

“Ripley doesn’t have medical training—you both said so—and you don’t give off signs of life, the creature might not even pay attention to you at all; and I’m the only one that could have accessed the lock system.”

“Waits should have gone himself in that case. A good leader takes risks into their own hands, they don’t shove them off onto inferiors without a better plan.”

“And leave me in control?” Ricardo tried to chuckle, but it came out forced. “Nah, bad idea. I’m cool under pressure, wicked with a keyboard, and I could probably get in and out of Knox in two hours, but I’m not a strategist.”

“If she puts out a distress signal is there a way that I could—?”

“Find her? Very likely but I can’t make a promise.”

The synth stared off at a blank wall while he went to work on deeper coding, breaking through firewalls and overrides now that he had access to the lock system itself. He still had to figure out how to get to the ventilation layout so he could open and shut entrances without suffocating anyone.

“I apologize…I should…Is there anything I can do? Any way that you could make use of me?” it was his wording that disturbed Ricardo more than the obvious shouldn’t-be-possible-to-have emotions. ‘ _Make use of me_ ’?

“Would keeping busy help you calm down?”

“Calm, anxious; those aren’t things you have to be concerned about with me I’m—“

Ricardo had to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes.

“I’ve been watching have miniature panic attacks every time we lose Ripley’s signal for an hour.”

“I had no such…” Samuels stopped himself, walked over, and sat down across the desk. He slumped forward, head in his hands in a human pose of worry that unnerved Ricardo deeply. “Am I that faulty now?” he asked.

“No, you’re still an imperceptive bot if that helps,” Ricardo offered.

“Imperceptive?” there was a note of pride in his voice; and he had head the same note when he had told Ripley over the radio that the Seegson droids were far beneath him. Despite clearly having some sort of complex around his nature, he still sounded proud of his advance tech if of nothing else about himself.

It took Ricardo a moment to elaborate, mostly because he wasn’t sure if what he had been witnessing throughout the day ( _or has it been hours? What a fucking mission…)_ was what he thought it was, but also because he didn’t know how to bring it up. He also wasn’t sure that he really _wanted_ to.

“Ripley looks at you and talks to you differently than she did the rest of us.”

“I’m not bothered; she’s aware of what I am and my position with—“

“That’s not what I meant,” Ricardo could still see her face in his head, looking at Samuels, only acknowledging her injured shipmate after she established his presence. She didn’t even pay him or Waits any attention until she saw Samuels in one piece. Her eyes had gone from hard to soft; he’d seen it before at his previous stations, family members or spouses meeting again after traumatic events. “It was…” he also didn’t want to make this moment any heavier than it was already; he needed the synthetic as undistracted as he could get him. Ricardo managed a convincing smile, and opted to phrase it as he would have to another officer had he one of them around to joke with to ease the stress of constant fear: “She looked like she would have eaten you alive if we weren’t here.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not explaining that to a—actually, mate I wouldn’t explain that to anyone,” he paused, no answer from Samuels, not even another one-word reply. “Are you and Ripley…?”

“There’s no affair if that’s what you’re alluding to.”

“You say it like it’s a good thing.”

“It is. The very concept of it is…appalling, unacceptable. She’s above it.”

“Are you?”

“Yes of course; if she was ever distraught or confused enough to seek me out I would direct her towards human companionship,” Samuels wasn’t meeting his eyes, preoccupied with the faux wood grain of the desk. “And I would never approach her for such a purpose even if I could desire…romantic pursuits.”

“You’re right, you’re hellishly faulty. I couldn’t believe a line of that shit if I tried to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he smiled at him genuinely for the first time in their conversation. “I’ve never met a ‘droid with a crush before; it’s kind of—cinematic.”

“Ripley would like you,”

“Coming from you, I consider that high praise.” Over the computer monitor he saw the synth smile back at him for the briefest of seconds: friendly and personable, so human that if he hadn’t seen his white blood himself he wouldn’t believe it. “So if anyone gets out of here alive, will you take her up on that visual offer?” _Alright, perhaps not so human_ , he thought at the look of increased confusion on the poor bot’s face. “Will you at least acknowledge it?”

“I-I don’t think it’s…a two-sided thought.”

“What were you arguing about with her before she left?”

“I told her that I should have gone instead—She wasn’t satisfied by my reasoning, and she kept asking—it didn’t make much sense, she kept asking me why I was so concerned about her; it’s my job, my position, my purpose. I’m disposable and she isn’t. And she kept asking me why _I_ was, she wanted my answer…not my programming’s answer.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that they’re the same thing,” he said, monotone, quiet. Ricardo decided that if all synthetics were as easy to read as this one was, that he’d like to start volunteering for Turning Testing.

“And she argued back with…?”

“She said that—“ he blinked for a second, and while he mouth didn’t move, Ricardo could hear Ripley’s voice as if played back on a small recorder, “’ _Stop answering me with your brain then and answer me with—shit, it doesn’t matter. I’m going. Stay here and take care of Taylor and for God’s sake if that fucking thing comes back here: hide. I don’t trust Waits or Ricardo. …Watch out for yourself._ ’”

They were both silent then. Ricardo was unoffended at her lack of trust in him, if anything he agreed with her: she had no reason to trust either of them, and the farther away that Ripley’s signal got the less he was trusting Waits.

“When she gets back, Samuels—are you listening to me?”

“…oh, yes. I’m sorry.”

“When Ripley gets back I’m locking the both of you in one of those cells until you make up,”

“We weren’t really arguing, she just can’t see that I’m—“

“Like I said,” Ricardo nodded, going to back to work on the screen display of the vent system, “I’m going to lock you both in a cell for at least an hour.”

“That’s not—“

“I will make it two, whatever issue is going on with…the both of you isn’t helping us and I can’t have anyone distracted. ”

“Answer something for me first,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Humans made my kind to be…as close to perfect as they could build us. We were made to be logical, precise—talking computers and calculators, able to give exact answers and—“

“Get to the point?”

“Why don’t any of you ever listen to us when we’re right?”

“Samuels?”

“Yes?”

“Three hours.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is gifted for @chainedcoffin. I had run an Alien: Isolation gift exchange (partially becuase I wanted to ease everyone's creativity blocks in our little boat, and partially as a model for launching a full-Alien fandom gift exchange in the upcoming year. Chainedcoffin had signed up to take part and due to personal health issues and then IRL conflicts, her assigned giver never sent in her finished gift for her end of the exchange (this isn't a callout against this person, if anything I sincerely hope they're alright because I haven't heard from them in months and it's not like them to vanish for that long). 
> 
> You asked for something featuring Ricardo, I believe? ...I tried.
> 
> Anyway, in most gift exchanges the organizers or specially assigned volunteers fill in to write a replacement gift, and I had started this....at the time of the deadline and then completely forgot about it. But I did remember it! And a big thank you to chainedcoffin for never complaining about not getting a gift in exchange for the awesome artwork that she submitted for it.
> 
> ps. it seems like real life or writers block or another interest gets all of this lifeboat's writers distracted at one point or another, so that the only long-fic writers that ever actually managed to get to see these two TOGETHER AND/OR HAPPY are sunnyhomes and underthefridge, so a mini-shoutout within this shoutout to the two of yo.


End file.
